After winning the last 5 games with random races in very hard (aggressive) here are my tips to success.

The most important key to success is a redesign of the star research and gas mining bases. And to double the fuel storage of all ships!

Short Version: I. 0% tax for all colonies except the home world, till max population, II. Only one research base for energy, high-tec and weapon research. Eliminate all labs in the star base designs. III. Leviathan gas bases. IV. Double all fuel storage.

1. First important key to win is to acquire one Polymer and more than one Steel mining station. 2. Redesign the gas mining station. Double the gas extractors, double the docking stations double the cargo bays. It only costs 1/3 more.. but it really helps you to refuel all ships. 3. Redesign explorer ships. Just double the fuel storage.. they can fly much further and they will find for you nice military ships which you can use to stop the early pirate attacks.. You need 40 explorer ships as fast as possible. 4. Design a troop ship with 300 ship size.. low defense, double fuel, build as fast as possible to gain the independent colonies. This one ship could bring you 5 colonies. Its much more efficient than a colony ship. 5. After you found a location with high-tec research bonus, build a high-tec research base there. Double the labs in the research base design. Defend this base with some frigates.. 6. Redesign all star bases, no star base should have a lab.. This key to success in research is to accumulate all bonuses to one station. You will lose research potential if every star base have little lab capacities. 7. Research the 100% high-tec research bonus wonder and build it as fast as possible, 8. Build a weapon and an energy research base at the place with the max bonus. 9. Set Tax to 0% for all invaded independent planets and colonies. The population growth ratio could be 50 times higher with 0% tax. Build the 50% population growth buns wonder if you can. 10. Build military ships with double fuel storage. The mobility is much more worth than one or two laser more. That´s it you will win! You can’t loose with this tips.. Very hard aggressive.. Even Shakturi is no problem.. if they come..(10% likeliness to appear [I think if your empire develops fast the Shakturi doesn’t come])

For later games you have 3 big research stations with good defense potential where you accumulate your best scientists. You will need leviathan gas mining stations with 20 docking stations and 80 storage cells.. There you can refuel easily big 50 capital ships fleets. This ships have 15 ultra dense fuel cells.. They can invade a whole empire without refueling. To build this big bases a redesign of the construction ships is helpful. Double the storage and the fuel cells.. And they will build much faster.

With the 0% tax trick you always have the most population in the game.. so when your money gets short set the tax to auto tax.. start the war, save some money. And then switch to 0% tax to all colonies which have less than max population. Important is to have always the newest tec in your passenger ship design. Resort bases are nice to have in the early game they can give you some money.

Resupply ships never helped me to refuel my big armies. They will help to refuel small strike forces.. But not big Capital ship fleets.. If the enemy empire is far away from your next gas fuel station, send a construction ship with the army and build as fast as possible a gas mining station at an invaded system..

You could probably get away with less gas extractors. Once you have a couple of tech upgrades two max's out your extraction speed. Even with starting tech there is no point using more than three...

Just a little clarification - research bonuses* are empire wide and not just for the labs at that location. That said stripping all of the research labs out of spaceports and putting them elsewhere is something I always do too. The important thing is to have your best scientist in that discipline at the best bonus location.

If you want to try a somewhat harder game start with a harsh homeworld - you won't be maintaining 40 explorers anytime soon. (And it may have been tweaked in the meantime, but it used to be the case that raising the aggression levels made for an easier game. The computer players don't play as a team and get involved in all sorts of wars with each other.)

I guess such things are inevitably possible and if someone aims to find the bestest strategy to beat any AI game, they can do it somewhere along these lines.

However I would never "ruin" my game experience by trying to exploit every little aspect of the game, nor build a single best ship type or the like... I like "roleplaying" the game to victory, so I avoid any deep game analysis and rather focus to getting info on how the game works and what I can do in it...

Supply ships only make half the dig so you need the double amount of extractors on them to get the best result. Further they need twice as long... still without a proper base at a frontline or close to a starting colony construction far away you might wish to place a mobile fuel station in a cloud.

Well, Harrs is not cheating and not even exploiting, IMO. He found optimal designs, and designing ships and bases is part of the game. Same for tax rates. His approach is more like using a killer opening move in chess than playing with 3 queens...

Now, as the strategy is heavily based on re-designing some of the base designs, I wanted to ask: is it possible to mod the designs used by AI, to "teach" them part of this strategy?

No, he is not exploiting. But being able to afford 40 explorers early hints at playing at rather easy difficulty level.

Contrary to him, I love resupply ships. But it is of course possible to create fleets that are too large for them.

From the hard days of the return of the shakturi, when the AI designer loved to have the cruiser design just a tad too large to be built until at least a few size upgrades were available. Two resupply ships fueling up a couple of hosts soon to reunite in one fleet to take on the powerful shields of the Zenox:

(Calculating wrong when estimating how many destroyers are needed also helps)

My 3 queens analogy is in reference to chess and should not be taken as exploitation or cheating. This simply creates a game where an outcome is predetermined and any move by the other player of no consequence.

If you or anyone else feels that they need to create killer moves then by all means do it and have fun. Just be aware that the events and storyline can become sideshows along with other empires.

As for your last point in modding:

If the AI can mod to your designs then would you not create bigger ones? Would you increase the size of the silver mist and increase the pirates punch or are they irreverent? Would you let the AI tech trade heavily for easy cash because taxes cannot support the military, who now is strengthened? Do events become bigger or do they become irreverent? Where exactly do we end this and how does the AI's economy handle the challenge?

In my opinion a great mod is play balance. Give unusual differences but try and keep a personal restraint on too many modifications that cannot be matched.

Bingelling, great picture and yes 40 explorers is fascinating. A harsher world and corruption turned up would make the economy throw a fit.

@Bingeling try it on very hard.. 40 Explorer is not really hard to build. You can build it easily with a 10 billion people start planet. And with the double fuel you get always some goodies for it.

@pipewrench.. It is in my nature, in my job I optimize parts for gas turbine engines to cope better against thermal and structural stress.. So in this game I make the best designs to kill the enemy. But I think that is in the nature of every 4x player.. ! I was so proud for my Doomstar design in MoO2 where I could kill the whole Antares defense with just one Ship.. what a killer design.. ( in DW I couldn’t find the best capital ship design jet..) Events are still important.. But one big problem is that the shakturi doesnt appear.. I dont know why and nobody answered me.. With the shakturi appearing early it would make more fund.. How do you play?? with standard design? tax set to 40% for every colony to kill the growth ratio?

But this tips are really good.. I am now playing a game (very hard second hardest aggressive level) against 10 enemies with excellent starting condition or level 1 and level 2 tech. And I have poor condition and starting tech random race random policy.. And I have no colonizable planet in my near, my 40 explorers couldn’t find any military ships.. First I thought it is impossible.. But I think I will win this game. Maybe I make an AAR for it.. And this makes fun.. I don’t have fun if I start the game over and over to have the best starting condition.. No it makes more fun if you start small .. as the last in the comparison table.. and then win!!

The designer should start a genetic algorithm optimization for the AI Design. Set for all ships and bases with different parameter like number of fuel storage number of docking stations and so on. Let them fight against each other [same starting condition] 100 times and choose the best designs for the hardest AI level. And they should really optimize the auto tax level settings.. Maybe with some options (1. max population growth 2. max income 3 mixture of 1 and 2.)

But one big problem is that the shakturi doesnt appear.. I dont know why and nobody answered me.. With the shakturi appearing early it would make more fund.. How do you play?? with standard design? tax set to 40% for every colony to kill the growth ratio?

(...)

Shakturi appear when: 1) Average Galaxy tech reaches a certain level 2) You have explored all the beacons.

I realize I'm asking for spoilers, but, what's the best way to prepare for the Shakturi? My fleets are approaching 20+ capital ships (and carriers), 20k+ firepower, with individual ships having 2-4k shields and 500-1k armor.

But one big problem is that the shakturi doesnt appear.. I dont know why and nobody answered me.. With the shakturi appearing early it would make more fund.. How do you play?? with standard design? tax set to 40% for every colony to kill the growth ratio?

(...)

Shakturi appear when: 1) Average Galaxy tech reaches a certain level 2) You have explored all the beacons.

No...

not always..

Its a bug. I think if you tech too fast they dont come. See in the tech section.. I described my problem..

@oogs I dont think that they will come for you.. In all my games they appeared before I had the tech for capital ships or they dont come.. But tell us if they appear..

Well, if you explore the Shaturi Beacon, they definitely come. I tried flying away from it, but too late.

You could always check the option that they don't come. They are very difficult to defeat without overwhelming force; even my death star was defeated once, obviously should have sent other large fleets in first to clear the defense.

Just consider the "Iron" mine to have a processing manufactory at the same time. They smelt the ore right there and refine the iron to simple nonalloyed steel and deliver it for further refining to alloys in other manufactories.

I would love to see you throw out an AAR sometime. For events.. they seem slightly scripted to progress with certain levels of development and mystery. Some statements above are right and some are a ruse. I will leave it at that.

I am using Arcatus Actual Resources mod which uses more realistic elements found in the universe. Its not perfect(I would like to see oil instead of polymer), but its much better. And, it works with DW and all it's expansions.

Just a little clarification - research bonuses* are empire wide and not just for the labs at that location. That said stripping all of the research labs out of spaceports and putting them elsewhere is something I always do too. The important thing is to have your best scientist in that discipline at the best bonus location.

Why is it useful to strip the starbases of the research labs, then? And why have the best scientists (I thought there were only scientists in general, is there a distinction in the game?) at a particular location when - as you say - the bonus is empire wide?

I would reckon that it is best to spread your labs out over several bonus locations - that way you multiply many bonuses empire wide.

As far as I know, character bonuses are location wide. So it is better to have lots of labs in one spot. Also, characters can have negative bonuses to research fields, and that makes single target stations better. Others may be great in all respects, which would make the "ultimate space port with 20 of each lab" the best.

Only the best bonus you have in the galaxy is applied empire wide for each field (weapons/energy/hi tech). You can get the location bonus with a single lab in a research facility. You can get the scientist bonus by having them stationed at a single lab in the appropriate field. If you want one scientist to provide bonuses on more than one field they need a lab for each of those fields.

Best bonus is made of scientist + location by discipline.

Example: - I have a scientist who has weapons +14%, energy +21%, hi tech +37% (Kiadian starter scientist). Initially my scientist is at a hi tech research facility with only hi tech labs, at a +28% location. No other scientist or location bonuses. So I get +65% for hi tech research empire wide and no bonus for other fields.

- I find another hi tech location with a +28% bonus but build a research lab there with one weapons lab, one energy lab and one hi tech lab and transfer my scientist there. Now I get +14% weapons research, +21% energy research and +65% hi tech research empire wide.

- Next I build another research facility at a +28% energy location including at least one energy lab. I don't transfer my scientist. Now I get +14% weapons, +28% energy and +65% hi tech.

- If I have at least one lab of each type and I transfer my scientist to the new energy location I will get +14 weapons (0+14), +49 energy (28+21) and only +37 hi tech (0+37).

If you have more than one scientist you want to pair best scientific skill with best location bonus for a particular field if you are going merely by the numbers (rather than perhaps settling for a smaller bonus but in the field of your choice).

Generally I put a lab of each type in all my research facilities for the flexibility.

Now you could keep most of your labs in a starbase. They will get your empire wide bonus and probably be safe and sound. I don't but that's because I like to make the private sector carry most of the research cost. You know you can put labs in mining stations, don't you? There is a definite downside... they get gobbled by pirates at times, and by enemies at other times. But when you are struggling for state income... They will not get your research bonuses though.

When more than one character is assigned to the same location, there can be synergistic effects.

Scientists are assigned to a research location. They give the research at that location a bonus that should be cumulative with the existing bonuses.

Each scientist at a research station provides research bonuses to the specific research area of the station (Weapons, Energy, HighTech). Additional scientists at the same research station provide half their skills on top of the first scientist, progressively halving with each additional scientist. Thus: Scientist 1 gives full 12% energy research bonus, Scientist 2 gives half of their 10% energy research bonus (5%), Scientist 3 gives one quarter of their 8% energy research bonus (2%), for a total of 19% energy research bonus (12 + 5 + 2).

Just another way to keep your research level high (and safe if in a Starbase as Feelotraveller stated). Hope this helps!

Interesting thread - I think it raises some questions about just how much one can customize before it essentially becomes 'putting more queens in the field'. I don't play 'to win' like this, but I nonetheless do customize certain things: It's just annoying not being able to build a troop transport early and it seems too stupid and boring to settle for the default tax rates (which all the AIs are forced to use and thus suffer, making you gain the upper hand!).

The real issue, of course, is that things are done non-optimally in the first place - it's just weird that things get designed wrong by default. The underlying issue, however, is that a rebalancing is needed in many fields. This would also let the player just play the game without having to worry about nonsensical and tedious 'optimization' - and it would make the AI a lot more competitive, too! What's needed is things like:

1) Setting tax rate to just a few percent shouldn't completely destroy population growth compared to running 0% tax, it makes no sense at all. Honestly, the way it works is just bad; completely unintutive. I also doubt anybody truly enjoys managing tax rates but the game essentially forces you to because the penalty for not running 0% is so blatantly unbalanced.

2) Research model needs to change, it doesn't make sense that the optimal is having just three massive research stations. Of course one can conduct better research by performing it across many different locations and investigating different neutron stars/black holes/etc.

3) Place some limits on the amount of extractors, cargo bays, docking bays and more on a design by limiting their efficiency past a certain amount. Optimal play should be using designs as they are now so that one can't simply build ultimate editions of anything.

4) No re-designing of private ships to outfit them with sensors or other nonsense exploits (I actually thought this was no longer possible).

Basically, instead of making it optimal for the player to abuse the game rules, change the rules so that there's no benefit to be had from exploits. (Not to hammer on your post, Harrs, rather the game ;) )

I agree that the benefit of 0 tax is a borderline game bug. There should of course be a difference between 0 and 2% tax, but not a more significant difference than the difference between 38% and 40%. Or at least not much, the link should probably not be linear.

I notice that I have to limit myself from even abusing offers thrown to me by the AI. In my current (and maybe soon previous game, it is growing scale), I started my Zenox on a harsh home world, very hard settings, and very high corruption (I think the corruption was at max at least, it could be one step lower).

I used 0 tax to build population, got a good set of colonies, and a regional capital on a 99% colony with nice colonies nearby. With this I can have a comfortable economy not building money running a good military strength. To the degree that I have many times looked to increase taxes a bit to not lose money. It has all been fine taxing every world with more than 80k revenue.

But then the AI starts sending the odd offer "Initiate trade sanctions against XXX for all our money". 400k here, 800k there, 2.4 million maybe? For initiating trade sanctions you can drop right after? Taking those trades removes the penalty on the economy set in the start conditions... Of course, the AI don't have harsh homeworld, don't have corruption, and has bonus income from the Very Hard setting.